We agree with the challenges identified in the draft Economic Development Strategy, i.e. the high cost commercial space, the high cost of housing, and increasing transport congestion:
We recommend that each challenge be met with a response, such as:
- High cost of commercial space:
- Upzone all commercially zoned areas
- Eliminate costly parking mandates from all commercially zoned areas, i.e. extend the state government’s reforms
- High cost of housing:
- Upzone all residentially zoned areas
- Eliminate costly parking mandates from all residentially zoned areas, i.e. extend the state government’s reforms
- Transport congestion and parking constraints:
- Charge non-resident commuters a reasonable fee to park all-day, on many more streets in Yarra, thereby:
- dissuading some from driving, and
- ensuring that people who are willing to pay are generally able to find a place to park
- Charge non-resident commuters a reasonable fee to park all-day, on many more streets in Yarra, thereby:
More customers = better for business
Businesses need customers. Colliers Urban Planning studied how to revitalise Victoria Street and identified that increasing residential population will help.
If Yarra City Council wished to support businesses, they should follow a ‘game changer – deliberate disruption’ approach, as proposed in the draft Victoria Street Revitalisation Plan, and upzone all residential areas within a walkable catchment area of any shopping street in Yarra to a level that is commercially feasible for builders.
Better access, not free parking
The Colliers Urban Planning report into Victoria Street identified that:
- most people travel less than 1 km to shops
- a key opportunity is to improve infrastructure for walking and biking
Those findings align with the independent report into Council’s trial of free 1-hour parking, conducted by Movement & Place Consulting, which found that the largest proportion of the community chose to walk, and that the cost of parking was irrelevant to over 98% of people:
Again, those findings align with other reports, such as the Good for Busine$$ report from the Heart Foundation:
Such findings reflect the fact that driving and parking is only one of several ways of accessing shops and services, and that in dense inner cities, most people prefer to walk or bike.
The draft Economic Development Strategy doesn’t propose offering free parking on shopping streets. That’s the right approach, because it’s more important to focus on overall accessibility. However, the draft fails to highlight the need to invest in infrastructure for walking and biking; it should be revised to do so.
Conclusion
Overall, Council can support economic development by:
- improving infrastructure for walking and biking (so that people find it safe, convenient, comfortable, and enjoyable to access local shops and services) by implementing the Transport Strategy and the Transport Action Plan
- imposing demand-responsive parking charges (so that people who drive to shops and services can reliably find a place to park)
The draft should be improved to clearly link challenges with opportunities, such as:
Such actions would be better than a vague proposal to ‘strategically plan’:
